A Strange Sight

Last night, I was sitting in the living room and I heard something that sounded like a plane. Now, planes are not uncommon, and we've had plenty of them lately. The Iditarod Air Force (bush pilots that volunteer their planes and their time to shuttling supplies, people, and dogs to different destinations during the Iditarod) has been flying in and out and around the area for the few days. The sound didn't fade away, though, as planes do. I looked out our living room window and this is what I saw:


A helicopter landed out on the ice. My first thought was, "Iditarod Air Force." I had seen a helicopter fly over a couple of times from my classroom window on Tuesday, although I hadn't remembered it being such an ugly brown-ish/green-ish/gray-ish color. I knew that a couple of teams had scratched (dropped out of the race) in Elim, and maybe a helicopter has more room to haul out dogs and sleds. Of course, I wondered why it was parked out on the ice so far away from the village, airstrip, and/or checkpoint, but whatever. I saw a handful of people climb out and go across the ice towards the village. The helicopter just sat there. After about an hour, I saw two more people climb out and head towards the village.

I called the only other teacher that I knew hadn't taken off for spring break - he always knows what's going on. He told me that it was a National Guard helicopter. One of the mushers is a member of the National Guard. They recruited him to run the Iditarod; he's like their poster boy. The National Guard people were taking pictures and video of him at each checkpoint. That definitely explained the ugly color of the chopper. After about 3 hours, I saw the people come back, load up, start the chopper and turn themselves around:


They headed west. . .


And disappeared around the edge of the cape towards White Mountain, the next checkpoint. . .


See the tiny black dot in the middle of the picture? That's the helicopter as it went for the corner and disappeared. Keep in mind that the beautiful sunset in these pictures is happening after 9:00 at night.

Iditarod

Knowing that the Iditarod front-runners were nearing the coast and the Unalakleet checkpoint, I was keeping a close eye on the current standings through last weekend. Sometime Monday morning, I saw that Lance Mackey had gotten to the Koyuk checkpoint. Koyuk is the checkpoint before Elim. Once a musher leaves Koyuk, it's 6-7 hours to Elim. I kept an eye on the standings all afternoon, but he was still chilling in Koyuk. Melody and I had decided to go and see him come through, but I didn't want it to be too late of a night. Mackey didn't leave Koyuk until almost 9 that night. That would put him in here around 3 in the morning. I decided to go to bed for a few hours. Less than 4 hours later, Melody and I got up and got dressed. It takes a lot of time to get bundled up to go outside into a wind chill of -30. Melody, Anna (next door neighbor and fellow teacher) and I headed down to the fire station (where the checkpoint is located) about 2:30. It was a beautiful, albeit cold, night. Clear sky full of stars. I've never seen so many stars in my entire life. We heard that Mackey was still at Moses Point, 10 miles out, and wasn't moving. He had probably stopped to rest his dogs and take a break from the 20-30 mph winds. We decided that standing around outside sounded like a bad idea, so we headed back. Melody and I sat down to watch the end of Night at the Museum, which we had started over the weekend, but hadn't finished. Just after 4, we bundled back up again. We got to the checkpoint just minutes after Lance Mackey got there. We watched him spread straw to bed down the dogs and take their booties off. (Dogs wear booties to protect their feet and help keep them warm.) He started to heat up dog food as the vets did their jobs checking the dogs. Melody, Anna, and I didn't stay long; it was really cold and really early in the morning. We got back about 5.

I didn't go back to bed. I knew that if I did, I would be more groggy than if I didn't. I just took a shower and got to school at about the normal time: 6:30. I had a lot to get done, but it was hard to stay awake. I was sitting at my desk writing my lesson plans for next week, and I couldn't keep my eyes open. I had to get up and walk around the halls a couple of times just to keep myself awake. I knew it was going to be a long day. The bell rang, school started as normal, and I hoped the morning would go quickly. We started hearing rumors that the whole school was going down to see Mackey and his team. Nobody tells me anything, so I just tried to ignore the noise in the hall and started our calendar time, as usual. Just as we got done, Funny (the secretary) said that the whole elementary end was going down to the checkpoint. We got the kids bundled up, and the whole elementary, along with miscellaneous junior high and high school students headed down to the checkpoint. (I think the older students were the only students there that day, due to the fact that our boys basketball team was at the state tournament in Anchorage, and it was the day before spring break, and an early release day.) Mackey was still there, and our kids got to talk to him. He was eating and drinking coffee and resting, knowing that he had a huge lead and the push to White Mountain was going to be a long one. He is such a nice guy. As we all crowded inside the building, he said, "Wow, you must have brought all the kids from the area. Elim doesn't have this many people!" He joked with the kids and talked with them, and I could tell some of them were really inspired. While they are enamored with TV/movie celebrities like other kids, these guys have a whole different set of celebrities to emulate - and I must say that I would rather they emulate mushers than some of our current TV/movie celebrities.

The rest of the school day passed just like any other day right before a major break. Not a lot of academics, but we got some work done. I managed to get a phonics lesson in, and we did some work with the St. Patrick's Day book that we had read earlier in the week. It was an early release day for the students, but we teachers had to put in a full 7 hour work day. I can't say I got a lot done that afternoon. I was tired! For those of you who know me, I'm an 8-hour-a-night type of girl. I don't function too well on much less than that. I guess now I know that I can survive on less than 4 hours, but my mind was pretty foggy.

Adventures

Melody's (new roommate) idea is have an adventure every day. Saturday's adventure was cross-country skiing and that awesomeness carried over into Sunday. Monday's adventure was getting to school. It had drifted Sunday night pretty bad and we couldn't get the main door open (again). We went out the apartment door and were blazing trail through waist-deep snow, laughing hysterically the whole way. Tuesday's adventure was trying this "Jalapeno Kippered Red Salmon" that Melody had gotten in Nome (as a gift from someone). It looked gross, but tasted like cold salmon. It really wasn't even all that slimy. Today's adventure was crazy. There is a flagpole outside teacher housing and there is a substantial drift between our door and the pole. Not to mention the hazardous steps. First one to touch the flagpole and get back to the door gets. . . um. . . eternal bragging rights? Picture this: I'm in pajama pants and tennis shoes, she's in jeans and tennis shoes, no coats or snow pants, and we're making a break for this drift that's taller than me. I won, but totally biffed it on the steps coming back. She fell in the drift when she lunged for my feet coming back because I was ahead. It was the best thing ever. Pictures will be posted to Facebook soon. I wonder what tomorrow's adventure will be?

More Obama and Education

I read Obama's speech about education today. It's good on paper. Everything he says about where we're falling short is absolutely true. His plans sound good in theory and his "inspired" remarks draw wild applause. They won't work in practice, though.

That's exactly where No Child Left Behind fell short. It was heavy on solid theory, but fell apart on implementation. It's like they're trying to use a business model for school reform. That's not going to work. Schools are different from traditional businesses in so many ways.

My suggestion would be for the president to put together an advisory board of sorts with plain, ordinary teachers from a cross-section of society - urban, rural, inner-city, suburban - and actually listen to their experience. That's where the workable ideas are going to come from.

Obama and Education

I have been outraged about this all day. I get my news from the Google news headlines. Every now and then, I come across an article that I want to read (in the few spare minutes I have at lunch). That happened today. Ever since I read the first headline about Obama's wonderful new plan for education, I've been wondering how such a naive, stupid person became our president.

First of all, merit pay for teachers. That is, implementing "a system that rewards our best teachers with more pay for their excellence in the classroom," measured by student performance on standardized tests. Ridiculous. Put quite simply, it doesn't work. Teacher unions don't like it because they say it pits teachers against each other as competitors instead of collaborators. I say that's the least of our problems. Basing our salary on how well our students perform on standardized tests makes no sense. There are too many factors out of our control - how much sleep the kid got the night before, hunger, test anxiety, limited English proficiency, learning disabilities, etc. I can differentiate and account for those differences in my teaching, but I don't have that flexibility when administering a standardized test. Should I, as the teacher, be penalized because half of my students don't speak English? Should I, as the teacher, be penalized because some of my students were kept awake by drunk family members the night before the test? Obama says that merit pay does work and that the rest of us are just dumb idiots: "Too many supporters of my party have resisted the idea of rewarding excellence in teaching with extra pay, even though we know it can make a difference in the classroom." Well, if so many of your supporters are opposed to it, maybe you should take a look at the reasons why.

Obama also wants to give private school vouchers for parents who want the option of not having their children attend public school. I say he can go ahead and do it, but expect a drop in test scores. Public schools will be losing the best students, and are left with the ones who have uninvolved parents (by choice or by circumstance) and who don't stand a chance against the "upper-class white student" standardized tests that we have. Test scores will drop across the board.

He also wants to extend the reach of charter schools. I have a simple equation: charter schools = evil. Of course, charter schools do better on testing. There is no accountability, and they can pick and choose their students. As a result, they get more money because of their "excellence" and the public schools once again lose the war for resources. Yet, public schools are the schools that need it most desperately.

The only thing he said that made sense was revamping No Child Left Behind to implement more uniform and rigorous standards nation-wide. That's a good thing! Now, give us teachers a reasonable timeline to accomplish that. Obviously 8 years wasn't enough. Give us 15 years. We will get there, but it's going to take some time.

Supposedly, in Obama's stimulus package, was money set aside for education use. Guess which schools and districts are going to receive the bulk of that money? You guessed it: the well-performing ones. "The money is conditioned on results." Reward the well-performing schools . Looks good on paper, but is an asinine idea. Crumbling schools with poor teachers need the resources to become well-performing schools, but they can't get those resources because they aren't already well-performing. They have to prove progress to get money, but they need the money first to make progress. It's backwards. Where are they going to get the money they need to implement programs that work? Where are they going to get the money to turn their schools around? They aren't. The gap between well-performing students and poor-performing students will continue to grow because all the money is going as a reward to the well-performing students and the rest are being left behind.

The last thing Obama wants to do (that I read about): is extend the school day and the school year. "The challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom. If they can do that in South Korea, we can do that right here in the United States of America." Since when did we care what they do in South Korea? Their teachers spend less time actually teaching than we do. The majority of their days are spent on collaborative planning and professional development. We don't need to extend the school day or the school year! Just give us sufficient resources in the time we have!

Mr. President, please listen to the teachers! Listen to the ones who are out there in the trenches every day. Please don't make a horrible mistake!

A Dose of Vitamin D

I have a new roommate. She's the long-term substitute for the roommate who took off for Anchorage and never came back. We're still not sure if she's coming back because nobody (and I do mean nobody) has heard anything from her since she left. The new roommate, Melody, got here on Friday, after being storm-bound in Nome for two days. I was a little nervous, but it was getting a little lonely, so I'm glad she came. I shouldn't have worried. We were chatting like friends in no time. She said she hadn't brought any books with her, so I let her look through my random collection. After we got done laughing over children's books an hour later, I knew we were going to get along just fine.

She wanted to get out and "play" today, so we asked Anna, the teacher next door, if she would take us out on a cross-country ski trail. I haven't had a chance to go skiing yet this year, and it felt really good to get out. The sun was peeking through some high clouds and it wasn't too cold, which was nice after our recent storms. We went out in a circle towards Baldhead (a mountain to the east of the village). After that loop, we headed towards Nex Creek, which is west out of the village. I hiked with Anna to Nex Creek in September, and I remembered it being quite a hill. My memory was right. We were v-stepping for quite some time. We stopped at the top of the hill before it drops down to the creek. The view from the top of the hill is one of my all-time favorite views, even though it looks quite different in March than it does in September.

September:

March:




The view of the village also looks quite different in the winter. September:


March:



After stopping for a break at the top, we headed back down. It would have been fun to go all the way to Nex Creek, but looking down the trail, knowing that we'd have to come back up eventually, was enough to make me want to turn around. Luckily, it had the same effect on Anna and Melody, so we headed back the way we came.

We were gone almost 3 hours and probably skied 7 or 8 miles. I went cross-country skiing at Anthony Lakes over Christmas break, and that was a cakewalk compared to this. That trail was flat (or at least smooth), firmly packed, and clearly marked, with grooves already formed for the skis to fit in. The trails we followed today were loosely packed snowmachine trails. It was up and down, bumpy, and so much more fun.

I have friends who tell me that they can't believe that I live in Alaska because it's such a crazy place. They tell me that they never ever want to live here, or even visit because it's so cold all the time. (You know who you are.) It really makes me sad to hear that. This is a beautiful state with so many opportunities to enjoy it, but so many people write it off as being a frozen wasteland. It's really not, but most people don't even give it a chance. Yes, it gets cold. That just means we have to wear more clothes in the winter. I don't know how people can honestly say that they don't want to live in Alaska without having experienced it for themselves.

I hadn't realized it, but the trail we were on is a part of the Iditarod trail. The Iditarod started this morning and the dog teams will be coming through in a little over a week. The ice is pretty bad this year, so the overland trail is marked for use. I can now say that I have been cross-country skiing along the Iditarod trail. True, it was only 3 miles of the 1150 miles of the Iditarod, but still. How many people can say that?!

Crazy Weather

It all started yesterday. The wind was blowing snow around, but the basketball team flew out to the regional tournament on a commercial charter, so I figure it wasn't too bad. But then the principal called me after school to tell me that my new roommate (a long-term sub) was weathered in to Nome. The wind blew all night, picking up in intensity. By this morning, it was going 20-30 mph. The walk to school wasn't too bad once I got past our door. I was able to shove it open, only to be met by a chest-high wall of snow. I went back inside, put my snow pants and a hat on, and climbed up the wall of snow. Beyond that, it was just a matter of stepping in the right places. I felt silly for wearing snow pants when it was almost 20 degrees outside, but I didn't really feel like getting wet. Sun came up a couple of hours later and it was complete white-out conditions. We couldn't see much of anything out the windows. The wind continued to increase. I got wet going home for lunch. The wind was blowing the snow so hard I couldn't look up to see where I was going. I was just stumbling in the general direction of our building. The snow was just deep enough outside our door to cover the tops of my boots and get my jeans wet. It was ridiculous.

The principal came into my room in the middle of the afternoon. He told me to release my kids only to their parents. I was not allowed to let them go without a parent escort because of the weather. He made a school-wide announcement to that effect about an hour later and about 30 minutes after that, came in and made the announcement to my class. He was serious about it.

I left pretty soon after the final bell. That's when things got interesting. I was the first teacher to head out. I was glad I had my snow pants on because I was sinking in up to my waist before I even got close to our building. The wind was still blowing so hard that I couldn't breathe or look up. I got to our door and stopped. Snow was piled up chest deep against the door. There was no way I was going to be able to open the door. I stood there for a couple of minutes pondering my options. Option 1: Go back to school and wait for someone stronger than me to dig out the door. Option 2: Stand there in the wind and snow and wait for someone stronger than me to dig out the door. Option 3: Cry and wait for someone stronger than me to dig out the door. I went with option 1. About the time I got to the school, the special education teacher (who isn't stronger than me) was headed out the door with a snow shovel in hand. I went in and got another snow shovel and went back to our building to help. She got the door open enough to squeeze in. The way the wind was blowing, though, it wasn't going to stay clear for long. Anna, the teacher who lives next door to me, went outside and cleared our shared porch off. I think she chipped enough ice away that I can open that door now. It was blocked shut with ice. At least I have that as an exit option now. It's a little bit longer route to the school and is still going to be ridiculously deep, but the door opens. That's what we're going for right now.

I went down for a little while right after I got home to try to clear away a better path out that first door. I shoveled for about 20 minutes, but ran out of places to put the snow. It was pretty much hopeless. The height of the snow drift is now over my head and completely impassable. The wind is blowing over 30 mph with gusts of almost 50. Even if the wind dies down, I honestly don't know how I'm going to get to school tomorrow. One thing is for sure: I'm wearing my snow pants and I don't care how silly I look.

LOST

I've got a theory. Actually it's more like an explanation. Actually, this is what I contemplate at 6:00 in the morning as I get ready for school.

Remember connect-the-dots puzzles? A picture is created by connecting the numbered dots (or letters of the alphabet) in the correct order. LOST is kind of like that, only more maniacal. They are connecting dots for us to create the larger picture that will be revealed at the end of the series. The audience is expected to follow the dot-connecting to a logical end. First problem: we don't know the larger picture so we don't know what we're shooting for. Supposedly the producers do, but this is LOST we're talking about. Anything could happen. Second problem (and this is the biggie): the directors and producers aren't playing fair. They're not giving us the dots in the correct order.

Example: They give us A, and then connect B and C, but don't show us the connection to A, they skip D completely and go to E, connect to F, connect to G, show us H, skip to K, skip to L, go back to D, connect G to H, skip ahead to W, skip back to M, and then connect it to L, etc. The audience never knows where (or when) they're going or what dot it is until way after the fact. Kind of makes composing a timeline a wee bit more difficult, especially since we don't know the big picture.

That's the beauty of it. Complete confusion for an hour a week. And besides, it gives me something to think about during the early morning hours. :-)

The new favorite thing for my students to do to kill extra minutes at the end of class is to find big words using the letters from bigger words. I never anticipated them loving it so much. I actually posted a big piece of paper with supercalifragilisticexpialidocious written on it. They filled that paper with words within two days. (I never realized before that word has no 'm' or 'n' in it.) They're now working on the word cinematography (not as long, but it's got a lot of letters). One of the aides commented that she had found at least 12 words just using the letters in the word March. I didn't think it was possible, but decided to see what I could come up with. I just found 14 words:

• mar
• arch
• char
• cram
• harm
• car
• cam
• ram
• rah
• mach
• arc
• ah
• arm
• am

Darn competitive side. . . . :-)

Good Times

I'm such a slacker! I gotta get caught up on the joyful moments of Tuesday and Wednesday!

Tuesday:

• We finished the IPT test! (That's the big standardized test that I was coordinating for our site.)
• My big trouble-maker was mellow and calm; he was actually focused on his work.
• The snow was interspersed with sun - my two favorite kinds of weather! It actually wasn't too cold and the wind wasn't blowing!
• I took my kids to the gym for our weekly gym time at the end of the day. One of my boys had on crocs that were almost too small. We were playing kickball and he almost lost his shoes every time he tried to kick or run. He started to do this goofy "flat-footed-toes-first" run that cracked me up.
  
• One of my girls (in the gym) came up to me after they'd been playing for a few minutes and told me that her shoes were making her feet sweaty. She knows that going barefoot is not allowed, so I'm still not sure what she expected me to do about it.

Wednesday:

• I got to school at my usual early morning time and was super-productive!
• Once everyone finally showed up, I had full attendance. (The last kid rolled in around 10:45.)
• I've been doing quarterly assessments in math all week and today we finished all but one small part of one kid's assessment.
• I intended to leave directly after-school, but one of the older elementary students wandered into my room and wanted to use my globe. I figured from her evasive responses to my questions that using a globe was not allowed. I spent 20 minutes naming states and telling her when she found the right one on her own (unlabeled) map. Not necessarily the most educational way of doing things, but we were having fun.
  
• Walking home from the post office, I had the wind at my back. Made the uphill walk in soft snow much more pleasant.
• I have chocolate.
  

I've been in a bad mood since. . . ummm. . . actually, I can't remember that time I was actually in a good mood for more than a few minutes. I think maybe it was Christmas break, but the unhappiness straddled that two weeks. I realized last night that if I'm ever going to kick this mood, I've got to start focusing on the positive. I've been so concentrated on the negative side of things for so long that I lost the joy of teaching and the joy that is inherent in life. I decided that this week is going to be different. I am going to write down the good things, the joyful things, the fun things, and dwell on those instead. By writing them down, I can 1) actually remember them, and 2) keep myself accountable to not dwell on the downside. Here was today (keep in mind that each of these has about 3 negatives to go along with it, but I'm trying not to think about those).

• One of my 2nd grade students came into my room before she went to her homeroom this morning. She hadn't even taken off her hat or gloves yet, let alone her coat. She came in to show me her new shirt. I asked her if her mom was back (from three weeks in Nome) and if that was where her shirt was from. She nodded and then proceeded to tell me that her mom had also brought back a "walker" for her baby sister. She also told me that her dad had to lower it because her sister's legs were too short. I could tell that her heart was bursting with happiness because her mom was back, but she related all this in a calm, matter-of-fact way that made my heart smile.
• The sunrise this morning was beautiful! There was a slight break in the clouds right at the horizon, and a brilliant purple and pink sunrise showed through for about 10 minutes and then was gone.
• I have been coordinating a standardized test for our school site and we've been waiting on one student to actually come to school to make up the last section of the test. She came today! We're done!
• No after-school tutoring this week!
• I had full attendance in my class for the first time in weeks!
• I let myself sleep in until 6:00 this morning because I didn't have loads to do, due to the workday on Saturday.